Category: 4. Joe Bendel

By Joe Bendel. You might call this Romanian style tomb-raiding. Instead of ancient crypts, Costi’s unemployed neighbor invites him to help plunder his own family history. If Adrian’s grandfather really did bury something in his backyard on the eve of the Communist nationalization, the two men hope to find and split it. Of course, that will be a big “if” in The Treasure, Corneliu Porumboiu’s wry comedy of manners and bureaucracy, which opens this Friday in New York.

Facing foreclosure on his flat, Adrian offers Costi a deal. If he can pay the eight hundred Euros necessary for a professional metal detecting service, they will share the proceeds of everything they might find. Based on his late grandfather’s cryptic words to him, Adrian is absolutely convinced there must be something there, sort of how George Bluth, Sr. would say “there’s always money in the banana stand.”

For a mild mannered government office worker like Costi, eight hundred Euros represents a considerable investment. Just taking time away from work to schedule the appointment arouses his supervisor’s suspicions, in an absurdly droll scene that could very well be a defining example of Porumboiu-ism. However, Cornel offers them an off-the-books special behind his boss’s back. For half the price, he agrees to meet them with the gear in Islaz, the site of the 1848 democratic uprising. However, they must be secretive about their scheme, because the government is entitled to claim anything deemed to have national cultural significance.

Given the discreet, severely reserved nature of Porumboiu’s style, you might not realize in-the-moment how much lunacy unfolds during The Treasure. It has the heart of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World, but the tone of Porumboiu’s “greatest hit,” Police, Adjective. However, whenever a supposed authority figure saunters into the frame, the absurdity that follows is impossible to miss. The toxicity of the Communist era also lingers over their best laid plans, like an annoying ghost.

Deceptively stone-faced, Toma Cuzin slowly but surely brings out Costa’s endearing everyman qualities. Adrian Purcarescu, Porumboiu’s filmmaker colleague, whose own metal-detecting exploits inspired the film, is uproariously neurotic as his namesake. Similarly, real life metal-detector Corneliu Cozmei is a pitch perfect Droopy Dog foil for the resentful Adrian. Their caustic bickering is wickedly droll and acutely realistic.

That is also pretty much true of Porumboiu’s film in general. It is as understated as a Stephen Wright monologue, but it builds to an uncharacteristically satisfying conclusion. This is not just Porumboiu’s most accessible film, but perhaps the most reachable and diggable film to be broadly associated with the Romanian New Wave. Highly recommended for sophisticated palettes, The Treasure opens this Friday (1/8) in New York, at the IFC Center.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted January 6th, 2015 at 9:56pm.

By Joe Bendel. Who produces better films, feminists or anti-colonialists? Supposedly, a prominent Swedish feminist filmmaker and her grungy Argentine colleague will be joining forces to co-direct a typically co-financed, festival-only kind of film, but nobody is working in concert on this shoot. Every kind of -ism and all sorts of international film production conventions are skewered in Alejo Mouguillansky & Fia-Stina Sandlund’s self-referential many times over The Gold Bug, or Victoria’s Revenge, which screens during the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Neighboring Scenes: New Latin American Cinema film series.

Moguillansky, playing himself, is about to start co-directing an explicitly feminist film with the Swedish Sandlund, funded with hipster European grant money. The idea is to make a bio-treatment of Swedish feminist author Victoria Benedictsson. However, unemployed actor Rafa convinces his colleagues to make a film about failed radical Leandro N. Alem instead, because he has come into possession of a map to buried treasure outside the city of Alem.

Frankly, the town has nothing to do with Alem besides being named in his honor, but that hardly matters. Caught up in his enthusiasm, Moguillansky calls Sandlund to convince her to make the eleventh hour switch (swapping one Nineteenth Century suicide for another), shamelessly playing the colonialism card. He can bamboozle the European producers, but Sandlund remains dubious. Presumably, since she is stuck at a feminist conference in Miami, she will be powerless to stop them. However, like Charlie on the phone to the Angels, the heard but never seen Sandlund will exert a powerful force from the shadows (remember the second part of the title).

Of course, the meta-meta film isn’t called The Gold Bug for no reason. Just as in Poe’s story, the map is only one clue to the treasure’s location. There is also a cryptogram to be cracked. Naturally, this will require a lot of madcap running around. Unbeknownst to Rafa and his cronies, two women on the crew, acting with Sandlund’s counsel, are conspiring to grab the treasure for themselves. There is also an incomprehensible anti-colonialist, supposedly feminist film to be made—not that they have a script to follow.

Obviously, Gold Bug follows in the tradition of chaotic movie-making films, like Day for Night and Irma Vep, but it has distantly sharp satirical edge. When Moguillansky and Sandlund were thrown together as part of some grant-writing, international financing deal in real life, the concept grew out of the absurdity of their situation. Frankly, they expose a lot of the sausage-making of multinational “prestige” filmmaking for ridicule.

Sandlund’s frosty voiceovers are absolutely hilarious and Moguillansky delivers some of the film’s best lines as the (hopefully) fictionalized version of himself. As Rafa, Rafael Spregelburd (recognizable from The Critic) deftly balances raging insecurity and manipulative game-playing, which probably comes naturally to many actors. In fact, the entire ensemble seems to have a collective talent for rapid-fire cross-talk.

Gold Bug was co-written by Mariano Llinás, who wrote and directed the utterly brilliant Extraordinary Stories (not to be confused with Extraordinary Tales or Wild Tales). We can easily see his Russian doll influence in the narrative digressions and intriguing historical flashback interludes. It might be too clever for its own good, but anyone who has seen an unwatchably pretentious film at a festival and wondered how it got produced may find their answers here. Recommended for cineastes who do not mind a little metaphorical ox-goring, The Gold Bug, or Victoria’s Revenge screens Thursday (1/7) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s Neighboring Scenes film series.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on January 6th, 2015 at 9:55pm.

By Joe Bendel. Somehow, elderly British upper crust ladies and gents can be either reassuring or wickedly scary, depending on the context. Perhaps they are merely products of their idyllic or macabre country manors. Regardless, the tradition of British gothic horror continues rather nicely in Simon Frith’s Eva’s Legacy and Joss Maines’ The Wager, which both screen as part of short film blocks at the 2016 Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema.

Eva’s Legacy will be a human interest story. At least that is what the reporter who has come to interview her thinks. The heirless titular Eva has announced she is bequeathing her grand family home to a children’s charity. It seems appropriate, since the estate once sheltered several children from the chaos of the London blitzes. Eva vividly remembers one little boy in particular . . .

Frith has assembled a lovely setting and classy British cast for what feels like a proof of concept short. Frankly, it seems like Legacy is just getting started when it ends (but it is far worse when a film feels like it has been over long before its credits roll). Frith controls the build-up nicely, maintaining a vibe not unlike the under-appreciated Dominic West film, The Awakening. Sue Morley is subtly mysterious as Eva and Elizabeth Twells makes an effectively contemporary gothic heroine. It would be nice to see this one expanded.

In contrast, Maines’ The Wager is more self-contained, but it is even more satisfying for genre fans. It sort of plays like the Hammer Horror version of the favorite Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, The Man from the South. After fleecing two associates in a not-so friendly game of cards, Peter, their wealthy host, offers the financially desperate younger man a fateful bargain. If he can spend a night in a reportedly haunted room of the old dark house, he will forgive all his debt and throw in all the takings from their game. Needless to say, it will be easier said than done.

The atmosphere of The Wager is wonderfully Hammer-esque and the house’s backstory is appropriately sinister (eerily evoking Abelard and Heloise). As Peter and the other old-timer Harry, Ian Hogg and Stephan Chase look they could have been wizards in the Harry Potter franchise or apprentices of Peter Cushing and Sir Christopher Lee, which is a very good thing.

Both Eva’s Legacy and The Wager are impressively produced, suitably British supernatural horror films. They represent a lot of talent contributed by their respective casts and crews, so they are easy to recommend for genre fans. The two shorts would screen well together, but they are in separate programs at this year’s IIFC, with the former screening this Wednesday (1/6) and Saturday (1/9) and the latter screening Friday (1/8) and Sunday (1/10).

Posted on January 6th, 2015 at 9:55pm.

By Joe Bendel. Orson Welles really made his reputation staging Shakespeare, particularly the “Voodoo Macbeth” produced for the Federal Theatre Project. Unfortunately, it was another Shakespearean production that perfectly symbolized the auteur’s mid-1960s fall from critical favor. In retrospect, it is rather embarrassing that The New York Times was more preoccupied with Welles’ girth than his artistic vision. It is worth remembering the next time the editorial page decides to give us a lecture on civility. Still, a lot of people missed the boat on Welles’ Falstaff and rights conflicts made it difficult for more appreciative later generations to catch up with it. Happily, Welles’ under-heralded Chimes at Midnight gets a special, restored DCP limited engagement, starting exclusively this Friday in New York at Film Forum.

Don’t hold your breath for St. Crispin’s Day. This is Falstaff’s story, not Prince Hal’s. Never shy about reworking Shakespeare, Welles basically plundered Falstaff’s greatest hits for the Henriad cycle, throwing in a few lines here and there from The Merry Wives of Winsor. However, the guts of the film come from Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, focusing on Prince Hal’s competing loyalties to two father figures, the hedonistic yet strangely gallant Sir John Falstaff and his severe father, Henry IV. Falstaff is way more fun, but the King represents his future.

Aware the Lancasters’ claim to the throne is iffy at best, the King would be much relieved to see Prince Hal start to take his duties more seriously. Instead, he prefers to carouse in bawdy houses with Falstaff and the more polished but just as disreputable Ned Poins. Unfortunately, his profligacy only encourages rebellion among the nobility, who have rallied behind the dashing and popular Sir Henry Percy, a.k.a. Harry Hotspur, as their champion. Prince Hal cuts a poor figure beside him.

As for Falstaff’s figure, it is impressive, in its way. As the Times so brutally pointed out, you can’t spell Falstaff without an “f,” “a,” and “t.” Yet, there is more to Welles’ Sir John than the low comedy we associate with the reprobate. It is like he is a metaphor for Welles’ own career. Shticky on the outside, like the persona hosting Nostradamus documentaries and Paul Masson wine commercials, but he was heroic on the inside, like the director who labored for years to complete Don Quixote. Just like Falstaff, Welles was once the toast of Hollywood and a critical darling, but the establishment would turn against him in his later years, much like Prince Hal will inevitably renounce his friendship with Falstaff.

Whether Welles consciously identified with Falstaff on that level scarcely matters. It is still all there on the screen, in all its glorious pathos. Without question, Welles is the definitive Falstaff, puffed up with bluster, but achingly sensitive on the inside. His love for the Prince feels absolutely, painfully real.

Keith Baxter is also a minor revelation as Prince Hal. Probably better known for his stage work, Baxter is electric as the young prince. He might just be the coldest, most ruthless Prince Hal/Henry V seen on film, arguably bordering on the sociopathic. Yet, the great Sir John Gielgud might just upstage everyone, Welles included, as the ascetically noble and remorseful Henry IV. Even though most people automatically harken back to Arthur whenever his name is dropped, Chimes might be the best film to remember him by. Welles only had two weeks with Gielgud, but they made every second count. As a bonus, Jeanne Moreau also finds the earthy dignity in Dolly Tearsheet, Falstaff’s favorite “hostess.”

Chimes is a major Wellesian work that takes his signature visual flair to an even higher level. Every frame is a work of art, but the gritty grace and caustic wit of the ensemble performances remain incisive throughout. Wonderfully stylish and elegiac, Chimes at Midnight should be considered a worthy film in Welles’ canon. Very highly recommended, it opens New Year’s Day at Film Forum.

LFM GRADE: A+

Posted on December 31st, 2015 at 7:39pm.

By Joe Bendel. It is currently the #2 film at the global box office, nipping at the heels of The Force Awakens. It is also the second adaptation of the bestselling Chinese Ghost Blows Out the Light series of novels. In a weird distribution of rights, one consortium of film companies optioned the first four novels, and another group of partners bought the latter quartet. This is the one starring Shu Qi as American-born Chinese tomb raider Shirley Yang, which partially explains its brisk business. Yang and her associates will shimmy into crypts and flee hordes of zombies in Wuershan’s Mojin: the Lost Legend, which is now playing in New York.

Yang, the Byronic Hu Bayi, and the rubber-faced Wang Kaixuan are trained in Mojin, the art of grave “borrowing.” As per their time honored practice, they carefully light a candle in the corner of each tomb they visit. By blowing it out, the tomb’s ghost makes his displeasure known, forcing the trio to leave accordingly. However, if the candle still burns, then its all good. They are in for an exception to the rule. Things will get bad, but Hu and Wang have seen worse during their first subterranean excursion.

Flashing back to the Cultural Revolution, Hu and Wang are sent to Inner Mongolia as part of their re-education. Both fall in love with the comrade Ding Sitian. She is still adorable, even though she believes the revolutionary slogans far more than they do. Through a strange chain of events, they stumble into an ancient tomb. Of course, the cadres urge them to be “true materialists” and “smash the Four Olds.” Unfortunately, in this case, the Olds are not merely ancient. They are undead.

Hu and Wang carry the scars of their backstory. It is why Hu has never properly put the moves on the super-interested Yang. Similarly, the more impulsive Wang will sign up with a dodgy expedition financed Madame Ying, a Chinese born Japanese industrialist and cult leader in search of the mythical Equinox Flower, hoping he can use it to resurrect the late Ding. Putting aside their Tracy-and-Hepburn-esque differences, Yang and Hu set out to save Wang from his bad judgement. Frankly, they cannot completely blame Wang for the ensuing trouble. The whole deal was brokered by their dodgy agent Grill. At least he will quickly cone to regret it.

Believe it or not, Mojin’s narrative probably makes even less sense on screen, but it hardly matters. Wuershan maintains enough breakneck energy and the all-star cast exudes enough raw charisma to keep the film galloping forward, with or without logic. The special effects are Hollywood tentpole quality and the Inner Mongolian vistas are wildly cinematic. This is a big film, in many respects.

Yet, there were apparently risks involved, starting with its very premise. Tomb-plundering is not exactly politically correct in China these days, which reportedly caused more than a little uncertainty during the development process. The scenes set during Cultural Revolution are also a tad bit gutsy, especially when the Red Guards order the young Hu’s detachment to smash the Kitian artifacts.

Shu Qi is one of the few movie stars working today who can quietly kneecap viewers with a single look (this has been her specialty for Hou Hsiao Hsien, including the recent The Assassin). It must also be noted, Shirley Yang is quite the heroine, since it was Yao Chen filling her boots in Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe, which American audiences have yet to get a good look at.

As Hu, Chen Kun puts his shaggy look and brooding manner to good use, much as he did in Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal. Bo Huang mostly keeps the shtick in check as Wang, but it is fair to say Xia Yu’s Grill lacks his reserve. However, Angelebaby is acutely cute as Ding, while also bringing some tragic depth to their ill-fated romantic interest. Yet, Cherry Ngan shows off some of the best action chops as Madame Ying’s henchperson, Yoko.

At times, Mojin feels like Wolf Totem with zombies in place of the wolves, which is a cool place to be. Some of the broader, more localized humor fails to land, but there is more than enough adventure, supernatural bedlam, and ironic historical references to keep subtitle readers on-board and invested. In fact, viewers will probably be primed for the competing Ghost Blows Out the Light film franchise and Mojin’s inevitable sequels. Recommended for action fans, Mojin: the Lost Legend is now playing in New York, at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on December 31st, 2015 at 7:39pm.